This guy (age five years in SL) named Chris Kayor kept sending me the Photo Contest rules and I ignored them. I believe someone else kept sending them and tried to get me involved as well -- I didn't want to bother. It seemed a bit...odd. A very high prize for something that involved trying to go find copyright violations -- which abound in SL. There was something off about it.
Now the guy contacted me again, this time giving me what was in fact the *fourth notice by a fourth avatar* about a scammer who had put her rental boxes over mine. That was odd. I wondered why SO MANY people were reporting something that wasn't readily visible to the eye. This woman had put boxes over my box inside a house, on the Columbia sim, in my newbies community Aztecha. You'd have to know to go to that sim, alone among numerous mainland sims, and then see INSIDE that house that this scam was going on.
The people notifying me of this scam weren't all tenants -- only one of them seemed to be a friend of a tenant or something, it was odd. How did they just "happen to" notice this scam? It's not that common, although I've seen it, and usually the way people find out is when they pay the box and it goes not to me, but the scammer, and then their items return as they don't know to join the group, or they get confused by the different names. Sometimes it is caught in time.
For this not only to be caught in time - but noticed by 3-4 people -- was -- again, odd. They just happened to pass by and just happened to look into an ugly house with rental boxes inside it?
So this opens up the inquiry of whether the scam here is to pretend to catch scammers --- and then rope people into this scheme of getting this rental system -- which involves loading this guy's database with more names, so that he can take control over more situations -- it's a power thing.
What I'm supposed to do, evidently, is say, "Oh, great, thanks for the tip" -- and then accept the free offer. And maybe it really stays free, but what happens next is that this guy's data base fills up with the names of griefers which he can then further use to expand his empire.
I find the whole thing a racket, and I'd like to hear from others who have seen it.
I can't believe Sluniverse.com isn't raging about anything with 12,000 names in it outside of Second Life in one person's hands, who admits that it might have false positives. Remember when they went crazy over this sort of privacy-busting anti-griefing system before?
Here's the chat:
[2014/02/27 19:52] Chris Kayor: (Saved Thu Feb 27 20:28:17 2014)i believe the 2014 Trademarked and Copywritten Materials Photo Contest Rules with a prize pool of 125,000 linden might pique your interest
[2014/02/27 19:52] [Second Life: Chris Kayor has given you this notecard:
2014 Trademarked and Copywritten Materials Photo Contest Rules]
[2014/04/16 18:57] [Second Life: Chris Kayor has given you this notecard:
Final press release, the 2014 IP contest]
[17:19] [Second Life: Chris Kayor has given you this notecard:
just a heads up]
[17:19] Prokofy Neva: Thanks for the tip! I'll ban them.
[17:19] [Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.]
[18:39] Chris Kayor: happy to help when i can
[18:41] Chris Kayor: if you would like i can send you a small gift, that uses the one perm the illegal viewers do not override...a security orb that is linked to my database of investigated griefers, thieves and scammers
[18:42] Chris Kayor: at the moment it is just under 12,000 names...and is used by a lot of retailers and clubs
[18:44] Prokofy Neva: No, I don't use orbs, and it sounds to me like you're going around trying to drum up business
[18:44] Chris Kayor: i expected the cynicism
[18:44] Chris Kayor: nah
[18:45] Chris Kayor: its free
[18:45] Chris Kayor: you give back to people by writing
[18:45] Prokofy Neva: No, I don't use orbs -- period. They are the devil's device. And one with 12,000 names? That's bound to have innocent people and it's a real civil rights problem
[18:45] Prokofy Neva: you don't give back shit except to your own vanity
[18:45] Chris Kayor: i give back by fighting slimeballs
[18:45] Prokofy Neva: You arrogate to yourself the role of fighting crime which shouldn't be done by civilians, Linden Lab should do it
[18:45] Chris Kayor: and yes there have been mistakes
[18:45] Prokofy Neva: you're a vigilante
[18:46] Prokofy Neva: you're like the Justice League
[18:46] Chris Kayor: no
[18:46] Prokofy Neva: go play cobs and robbers elsewhere
[18:46] Chris Kayor: perhaps a vigialnte
[18:46] Chris Kayor: but the reference to comics is rather extreme
[18:46] Prokofy Neva: um, it's a group in Second Life
[18:47] Prokofy Neva: no one likes them because they infringe people's privacy in the end
[18:47] Prokofy Neva: now go away because you're a self-promoting pain in the ass
[18:47] Prokofy Neva: I do not use any form of orbs, the end
[18:47] Chris Kayor: ok
[18:47] Chris Kayor: sorry to bother you
